NET CALORIES???HELP ME!!!!!!!

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Replies

  • Rai007
    Rai007 Posts: 387 Member
    hi
    lets not complicate things
    okay what inches have you lost ??
    secondly be very sure about calories in. although everything is an estimate
    calories out is very subjective (i dont think even any equipment meausres it properly) so keep it on the lower side
    for the next few weeks just track everything very accurately
  • Rai007
    Rai007 Posts: 387 Member
    and pls do come back and tell what worked for you finally
  • debrag12
    debrag12 Posts: 1,071 Member
    In response to everyone :)

    Ive lost 40 lbs-and my 6 month mark is the 10th. I started at 272 lbs.


    I am 237 lbs-considered obese right? I work out 6 times a week, usually 2wice a day. I will do an hour or so of Zumba then walk 5 miles, and then walk my dogs.

    Or I will do an hour of Taebo, and walk 5 m iles .

    Or I will do an hour or 1.5 hrs of stairs at the gym-high resistance . Im PRETTY SURE I burn about a 1000 cals a day. My fitness pal will sometimes say I burned 2000 cals-which I still dont believe. There it is :)

    As far as my diet , I eat pretty much the same crap just different combos everyday.
    I eat apples as snacks
    Oatmeal smoothie or green smoothie breakfast
    Snack protein bar or tuna packet or cheese stick and grapes or carrots
    lunch is usually a salad with no dressing and or low fat vinagarrette
    dinner is usually a smoothie, maybe a sandwhich, chicken & veggies.

    Simple jane!

    that's 1500 a day? where's the main meal? you should be eating back some of those burnt calories.
  • MandyMason7
    MandyMason7 Posts: 185 Member
    Out of interest I put your stats in a running site calorie estimator and it comes up with 402 calories.
    Pretty darn close to what I'm actually burning :)
  • lynn_glenmont
    lynn_glenmont Posts: 10,093 Member
    If I jog/walk my 5 miles a day. I burn close to 710 calories. I have a HRM and Bodymedia armband I use LOL, so I am double knowing I have it correct. So I could see by looking at her picture with her weight, of her burning 1,000 in a workout.

    Add: blah Blah BLAH, yes I know it is not ever 100% accurate, its working for me in my weight loss and well *shrugs* "if it's not broke, don't fix it!"

    But it's not working for the OP. She tells us she weighs 237, nets 500-900 kcal a day, and hasn't lost any weight in two months. She also insists that her logging of exercise calories and food is very accurate, and chooses to be offended when people suggest that exercise calorie overestimates and food calorie underestimates are by far the most common reasons for not losing weight when you have plenty to lose and you think you are eating at a substantial deficit. (BTW, OP, those aren't character assassinations; no one is saying you're lying; they're saying you're mistaken and possibly putting trust in bad database entries, exercise machine overestimates, etc.)

    The OP also claims to be able to consistently manage intense workouts, whereas most people at a 500-900 calorie a day net would have a very hard time finding the energy to do their workouts (unless they were burning large amounts of stored energy, i.e., losing weight). So if the OP is right, she probably needs to go see a doctor to find out what is wrong with her that her body functions so bizarrely (or maybe make a deal with a medical researcher to patent whatever miracle gene mutation she has that allows her to create energy out of thin air--the government would love to have it to create super soldiers who can function with minimal or no field rations.)
  • Chimis_Siq
    Chimis_Siq Posts: 849 Member
    OK everyone. Thanks for the great advice , the ignorant advice, and the non=helpful advice :)

    For this whole week I have up'd my calories . NOW my Net Calories end at 1500, to where as before I never used this and didn't realize I was only ending with 150-500 and 900 Net a Day when I ate a little more.

    I am doing Insanity, being active and eating what I want (healthy of course and within calories) and have lost 3.5 lbs. First big change in months and first loss in months. So whether anyone thinks they know it all and are obviously nutritional experts, up'ing my cals helped me this week. I will keep on to see if this was the answer.

    ---and Im out! :)
  • Chimis_Siq
    Chimis_Siq Posts: 849 Member
    and pls do come back and tell what worked for you finally

    I up'd my calories about 600 ccals. I lost 3.5 lbs this week. Not doing anything else different. I am now NET cals 1500 cals by end of day-before very minimal net calories.

    Ive lost overall 20 inches. I am definitely smaller. My shoes are lose on me, my watch is lose on me, my clothes is super lose on me. I can wear a medium shirt-before 1x.

    Pants are now super lose but not falling off so not buying new ones until then.

    Thanks for your interest and comments :)
  • Chimis_Siq
    Chimis_Siq Posts: 849 Member
    Whats the problem, if you're losing inches you must look better and have lost some body fat?
    more and more I find it easier to clean up your diet, then stop worrying about all the rubbish on here about TDEE and all the rest, just clean eating and then cut your carbs and protein down to small servings - if you're not losing cut them down some more until you start losing again.
    this stuff about eating more to lose more is utter bollocks and I've never seen it before until I got to this site - go on bodybuilding.com and they'll just tell you if you're not losing you need to eat less . period. its really not rocket science.

    I LOVE THIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
  • Jamie22184
    Jamie22184 Posts: 33 Member
    Bumping
  • Mr_Knight
    Mr_Knight Posts: 9,532 Member
    I burn over 400 running a 5k every single time I run it. I'm a female, 5'7", 171 lbs (not severely obese, 12 lbs overweight.)

    No, you don't. Net burn for you is a little over 300 calories.

    And you know this because you use my heart rate monitor or my BodyMedia device? Get off your high horse, every time I read one of your posts I want to smack you.

    I know this because I know how the body burns calories for a number of exercise. And I know this because I know that BodyMedia DOES NOT ACTUALLY MEASURE CALORIE BURNS. And I know this because study after study has extensively documented that heart rate is not a good predictor of calorie burns, outside of very specific conditions for both the person exercising and their physical condition.

    If you want to know how many net calories you burn running there is a simple equation:

    net calories burned = 0.63 * body weight in pounds * miles run

    In your particular case, the 400 calorie number is coming from a multiplier of 0.75. That gives the *gross* calories burnt, meaning it double-counts your BMR/RMR. Most web sites and HRMs do this, because it is simpler to do it that way. But it is not right, and the longer the runs, the higher the error goes, and the more often the running activity, the more the error accumulates.

    This is an especially common error for people who walk, because the burn from walking isn't that much bigger than RMR, meaning the percentage of calories being double-counted is huge.

    The formula for running calories can also be used in a straightforward manner to get a reasonable estimate for other forms of exercise. For example, if someone does 45 minutes of Insanity or whatever, all they have to do is punch in the number of miles they can run in 45 minutes into the above equation. It's not perfect, but it will be FAR closer than what an HRM will give you (HRMs are not designed to give calorie burns for interval-type exercise) or that will be calculated for you by a web site or exercise calculator.

    So someone who is, for example, 200 pounds and can run 2 miles in 45 minutes (i.e., not very good cardiovascular fitness) will burn about 250 calories doing a "routine" that lasts 45 minutes.

    If you need to keep calling me names to feel better about yourselves, that's fine. But know that it doesn't change the physics, and the physics WILL catch with up you. It's inevitable.

    Cheers.
  • ILiftHeavyAcrylics
    ILiftHeavyAcrylics Posts: 27,732 Member
    That's good, OP. I think the likely explanation is this:

    http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/of-whooshes-and-squishy-fat.html

    Basically you had already lost the fat but it was being hidden by fluid retention. Upping your calories caused your body to release the water and show your true loss.

    That happened to me Thanksgiving of last year. At first I thought it was magic :laugh: I ate a bunch of food, including cheesecake twice per day, and lost a couple of pounds.

    Anyway good luck. :flowerforyou:
  • wild_wild_life
    wild_wild_life Posts: 1,334 Member
    That's good, OP. I think the likely explanation is this:

    http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/of-whooshes-and-squishy-fat.html

    Basically you had already lost the fat but it was being hidden by fluid retention. Upping your calories caused your body to release the water and show your true loss.

    That happened to me Thanksgiving of last year. At first I thought it was magic :laugh: I ate a bunch of food, including cheesecake twice per day, and lost a couple of pounds.

    Anyway good luck. :flowerforyou:

    He makes a good argument for water retention being the cause of the plateau, but I also wonder if there could be a hormonal component, since metabolic and other hormones (thyroid, cortisol, leptin, testosterone) are negatively affected by weight loss, especially at a high deficit. Refeeding can elevate (or in the case of cortisol, decrease) these and perhaps increase metabolism enough that weight loss will resume.

    Many people seem to assume that if someone isn't losing weight, it means they are eating at maintenance. I think the body is a lot more complicated than that.

    Nice job OP! This is the part where an accurate calorie burn estimation is important, but I think you have gotten enough feedback on that...:)
  • ILiftHeavyAcrylics
    ILiftHeavyAcrylics Posts: 27,732 Member
    That's good, OP. I think the likely explanation is this:

    http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/of-whooshes-and-squishy-fat.html

    Basically you had already lost the fat but it was being hidden by fluid retention. Upping your calories caused your body to release the water and show your true loss.

    That happened to me Thanksgiving of last year. At first I thought it was magic :laugh: I ate a bunch of food, including cheesecake twice per day, and lost a couple of pounds.

    Anyway good luck. :flowerforyou:

    He makes a good argument for water retention being the cause of the plateau, but I also wonder if there could be a hormonal component, since metabolic and other hormones (thyroid, cortisol, leptin, testosterone) are negatively affected by weight loss, especially at a high deficit. Refeeding can elevate (or in the case of cortisol, decrease) these and perhaps increase metabolism enough that weight loss will resume.

    Many people seem to assume that if someone isn't losing weight, it means they are eating at maintenance. I think the body is a lot more complicated than that.

    Nice job OP! This is the part where an accurate calorie burn estimation is important, but I think you have gotten enough feedback on that...:)

    Could be right-- there's a discussion about cortisol in one of the other links I posted up-thread.
  • Wow, you are so obnoxious with your name calling and stupidity OP. Its clear they were right: you are eating too little, and you are wrong in your estimates of calorie burn. When you eat more as they said, you lost weight, seen it on here in several posts. MrKnight maybe was wrong, but he always says people are eating too much, the rest were right.
  • Guinivere
    Guinivere Posts: 357 Member
    Wow, what do you do exactly to burn 1000 cals a day? I struggle to get 600 burned in two hours!

    Also losing inches is better than losing weight, that means you're laying down lean muscle tissue and losing fat simultaneously! Win win!

    Try adjusting your macros to a more p40/f40/c20 ratio within your calories if you feel you are stuck in a plateau (you should always eat back your exercise cals to ensure you are feeding your body especially if you are burning that many cals in exercise.)

    And remember to deduct the cals you would have burned just being alive during your workout as the hrm won't subtract that for you.
  • Wow, you are so obnoxious with your name calling and stupidity OP. Its clear they were right: you are eating too little, and you are wrong in your estimates of calorie burn. When you eat more as they said, you lost weight, seen it on here in several posts. MrKnight maybe was wrong, but he always says people are eating too much, the rest were right.

    I wouldn't have replied again if I saw what she wrote previous, but I notice a mod has cleaned up/deleted all her insult posts. I think they were directed at MrKnight and he didnt even insult her. Its not cool to ask for help and then insult those you don't agree with.
  • loriq41
    loriq41 Posts: 479 Member
    Please God, make it end with all these people saying that they are burning 1500 calories a day working out. I understand if you are morbidly obese and do the elliptical or run for a few hours..I get that. People overestimating their calorie burn during exercise is making me crazy. Please check your diet, weigh everything, dont eat an extra 1500 cals or whatever because you earned it...this stuff is all foolish.
  • Please God, make it end with all these people saying that they are burning 1500 calories a day working out. I understand if you are morbidly obese and do the elliptical or run for a few hours..I get that. People overestimating their calorie burn during exercise is making me crazy. Please check your diet, weigh everything, dont eat an extra 1500 cals or whatever because you earned it...this stuff is all foolish.

    so, if I read your post correctly, I should not go with the calorie burn that MFP has set up through ZUMBA, because it is completely overestimated????
  • loriq41
    loriq41 Posts: 479 Member
    Please God, make it end with all these people saying that they are burning 1500 calories a day working out. I understand if you are morbidly obese and do the elliptical or run for a few hours..I get that. People overestimating their calorie burn during exercise is making me crazy. Please check your diet, weigh everything, dont eat an extra 1500 cals or whatever because you earned it...this stuff is all foolish.

    so, if I read your post correctly, I should not go with the calorie burn that MFP has set up through ZUMBA, because it is completely overestimated????
    You have that right...MFP inflates ALL EXERCISE....not trying to piss people off but it is bothersome to have people spin their wheels over and over...
  • rainunrefined
    rainunrefined Posts: 850 Member
    Yes eat back you exercise calories. Get a HRM to get a more accurate calories burnt, MFP calories burnt and what those cardio machines say you burnt can be off by quite a bit

    This. And I will add... use a food scale if you aren't already.
  • I burn over 400 running a 5k every single time I run it. I'm a female, 5'7", 171 lbs (not severely obese, 12 lbs overweight.)

    No, you don't. Net burn for you is a little over 300 calories.

    On what do you base your disagreement? I am 5'7", 156.6 pounds and using a heart rate monitor burned 425 calories for my 3.2 mile run.
  • I burn over 400 running a 5k every single time I run it. I'm a female, 5'7", 171 lbs (not severely obese, 12 lbs overweight.)

    No, you don't. Net burn for you is a little over 300 calories.

    And you know this because you use my heart rate monitor or my BodyMedia device? Get off your high horse, every time I read one of your posts I want to smack you.

    hehehehehehe :)
  • Mr_Knight
    Mr_Knight Posts: 9,532 Member
    I burn over 400 running a 5k every single time I run it. I'm a female, 5'7", 171 lbs (not severely obese, 12 lbs overweight.)

    No, you don't. Net burn for you is a little over 300 calories.

    On what do you base your disagreement? I am 5'7", 156.6 pounds and using a heart rate monitor burned 425 calories for my 3.2 mile run.

    Already answered repeatedly, and at length.

    HRMs don't measure calorie burn. They measure heart rate, and then guess at calories burn. Unfortunately heart rate does not correlate well with calorie burn except under specific conditions.
  • gamerkiwi
    gamerkiwi Posts: 93 Member
    I don't get the net calories concept. Why would you eat back the calories you burn if weight loss is the goal? It seems like people are just finding excuses to eat more, instead of using exercise to actually aid in their goal.
  • Bottom line is you can put together a spreadsheet that will give you back better data that is available on most sites and if you cant go to healthsidekick because it takes out the bad equations and just simply tells you what you are doing and how it relates to weight loss. It is a much more accurate way to equate how things are impacting your weight.
    Should you use the food and exercise on MFP or any other site? Depends how accurate you want to be and how much weight you have to lose. If you have to lose a 25 pounds plus you can lose weight with being general. As you get down in weight most need to be more analytical about what they are doing, but you are way better off developing your own food and exercise data base and then consistently log it and bouncing it off your weight and bfp.
  • wild_wild_life
    wild_wild_life Posts: 1,334 Member
    I don't get the net calories concept. Why would you eat back the calories you burn if weight loss is the goal? It seems like people are just finding excuses to eat more, instead of using exercise to actually aid in their goal.

    Because the deficit is already built into your goal before exercise. So unless your goal is set improperly, the MFP calorie goal is your net goal. Having a higher deficit is not necessarily better.

    As for using exercise to aid in reaching a properly set goal, then yes, exercise gives you the option of eating more than you otherwise would be able to to achieve the same deficit.